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The inventor and author Ray Kurzweil likes to say that the next 100 years will resemble 20&comma;000 years of progress if we continue to innovate at our current rate&period; I think rather that next 15 years will feel like walking into the future -- the way it must have felt at the turn of the 20th century&period;

In 1895&comma; people washed clothing by hand&comma; traveled by horse and chopped trees with axes&period; By 1910&comma; they could use a washing machine&comma; travel in a Ford Model T and cut down trees with a chainsaw&period; Planes flew overhead&comma; streets were lit with electricity and telephones were becoming ubiquitous&period;

Between now and 2032&comma; American society will experience changes of that magnitude again&period; The entrepreneurs who thrive over the next 15 years will be those who reverse engineer the future&period;

Too many founders settle for building "features" -- incremental novelties that modify mature technology&period; Reverse engineering is for entrepreneurs who want to build disruptive technology &lpar;hint&colon; if your marketers have to say it's "disruptive&comma;" it's not&rpar;&period;

Reverse engineering the future has three steps&colon;

What does the future look like&quest;

What is the hidden need in that future&quest;

When will that future be ready&quest;

The hard part is answering those questions&comma; not asking them&period; Let's examine how the best reverse engineers do it&period;

In the same post&comma; Musk wrote that "&period;&period;&period; the overarching purpose of Tesla Motors &lpar;and the reason I am funding the company&rpar; is to help expedite the move from a mine-and-burn hydrocarbon economy toward a solar electric economy&comma; which I believe to be the primary&comma; but not exclusive&comma; sustainable solution&period;"

The 2006 post shows that Musk worked from a future -- the solar electric economy -- backward to the short-term goal of making an electric roadster faster than a Porsche&period; It's as if Musk planned an ascent up Mt&period; Everest from the summit&comma; not the base&period;

That's step one in reverse engineering&period; Start in the future and plan your way back to the present&period;

Find hidden needs&period;

Entrepreneurs love talking about unmet needs&period; The press releases all say&comma; "We fulfilled an unmet need in &lsqb;generic industry&rbrack;&period;" I prefer entrepreneurs who find hidden needs that people don't know they have&period; That's step two in reverse engineering the future&period;

I credit consultant and polymath Sylvie Leotin for inspiring my thinking&period; She created a groundbreaking model that combines empathy and multidisciplinary techniques to help companies reverse engineer the hidden needs of customers&period;

She argues that you find hidden needs through empathy&period;

Apple once struggled with empathy&period; In the late 1980s&comma; it developed Newton&comma; a PDA that sold from 1993 to 1998&period; I was a consultant on the project&period; At the first Newton focus group&comma; the facilitator said&comma; "Imagine a computer you can carry around and write on with a stylus&period;"

The participants asked questions like&comma; how fast is it&quest; How big is the hard drive&quest; How much memory does it hold&quest; They were trained to buy computers&period;

At the second focus group&comma; the facilitator said&comma; "Imagine you have magic paper that makes everything you write digital&period;" That didn't work either&period;

Meanwhile&comma; Palm figured out the hidden need&period; People wanted rapid connectivity everywhere&comma; but they couldn't lug around phone books in their pockets and purses&period; Its PDA stored names&comma; phones numbers&comma; appointments and other information about relationships&period; The PalmPilot had empathy&period; Newton just had features&period;

Set a stage&period;

If you're struggling with hidden needs&comma; learn from Disney&period; When I was consulting for Disney in the 1990s&comma; it wanted to create a better TV remote control&period; These were the days when you clicked channel up&comma; channel down or numbers&period;

Disney built a living room with couches and TVs where it could test remote controls&period; Rather than thinking like customers&comma; the Disney team acted like them&period; It produced a grid-based remote control that could visit any channel in three or four clicks&period; It remains an intuitive and rapid navigator&comma; although Disney's business interests went elsewhere&period;

Twenty years later&comma; Netflix still can't get channel navigation right&period; Browsing shelves at Blockbuster was easier than scrolling through Netflix today&period; Maybe Netflix needs an imaginary living room&period;

Disney built a stage and played out different scripts until it found the best one&period; It practiced empathy through imagination and story&period;

Ready&comma; set&comma; wait&period;

The reverse engineer's vision is less of a goal and more of an inevitability&period; That's why reverse engineers have the confidence for step three&colon; wait until the future is ready&period;The technology will speak to you when everything comes together&period; Apple envisioned the iPad in 1987&comma; but had to wait over 20 years for cost&comma; capability and connectivity to come together&period;

They say there are three rules of real estate&colon; location&comma; location&comma; location&period; I say there are four rules of venture capital&colon; too early&comma; too early&comma; too early&comma; too late&excl;

Take virtual reality &lpar;VR&rpar; as an example&period; Facebook spent &dollar;2 billion on Oculus Rift and now plans to spend another &dollar;3 billion over the next decade&period; Zuckerberg says VR quality won't be good enough until the end of those 10 years&period;

Too early&excl; VR needs a few flips of Moore's Law to achieve sufficient computer power and resolution in a compact device&period; After Facebook has spent a decade and &dollar;3 billion&comma; some startup will make a better VR headset for a tiny fraction of the cost&period;

No company can invent every technology it needs for its future&period; Thus&comma; Tesla sells fancy cars you can drive now&comma; not affordable cars that &lpar;maybe&rpar; will drive themselves in five years&period; What is Oculus going to do for a decade&quest;

Here's why reverse engineering matters&period;

As a venture capitalist&comma; I hope you build revolutionary companies&period; You don't need to convince anyone that you're "making the world a better place" or trying to "have an impact" &lpar;on what&quest;&rpar;&period;

The people who created washing machines&comma; cars and chainsaws between 1895 and 1910 weren't trying to save the world&period; They weren't trying to be disruptive&period; They were trying to make great products &lpar;and lots of money&rpar;&period; Your better world will be a side effect of reverse engineering the future&period;